Old Wounds
by heartumbles
Summary: You've always been one to hold a grudge.


You wake him as you usually do: Gently.

A smooth caress, your knuckles gliding along the curve of his cheek. His face, the only thing you've left unmarred in all this time. One week. One very long week. And he's stirring, tension slowly threading itself through his body. You watch with vague fascination as the muscles of his nude form tighten against the bonds trapping him to the chair. The ropes strain with him, chafing damaged skin. A brief moment of struggle. Then resignation creeps back, far too soon, far too easy. You see it in the way his shoulders droop, in the way his fists unclench and fingers dangle behind his back. His head sags, leaning into your touch simply because it's there, simply because it's one of the few reprieves he knows you'll grant him throughout the night. A shuddering breath snakes through his teeth, warm against your wrist. Like clockwork, he winds down.

And you think it a pity.

He had more fight in the beginning. Something to say, at the very least, be it half-snarled curses or ragged demands for freedom. But not now. Not today. Today, he doesn't bother with words. Doesn't even open his eyes.

Fine.

You let your hand linger on his cheek for mere seconds before reaching up and yanking on the cord dangling inches overhead. The lightbulb flickers to life, dim yet intrusive in the cramped quarters of your shed. Your handiwork from the nights before, now illuminated in an amber glow, stands fresh on his skin. Blisters and bruises the color of squashed plums bloom across his chest and back, his arms and legs. Scars, thin and jagged, form a discordant map from point to blemished point. You trace a finger down one such scar, golden eyes narrowing to slits when he remains perfectly still. Waiting.

"I think I knew you once."

Soft words. Lingering words. It's the first time you've sounded this at peace with the situation. He heaves another breath when your finger glides to a stop over his heart. You spread your hand there.

"I knew you once. Get that feeling when I look at you."

His heartbeat's an irregular rhythm singing beneath your palm. He's holding back a whine when you apply pressure, jaw clenched, toes curling. You dig a switchblade out of your pocket, flicking it open in one harsh movement. There's an edge to your voice now.

"I think you pissed me off."

You poise the blade's tip just below his collarbone, pressing. Pressing. Blood beads. You relish the way his chest sinks and rises with each deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. Shakier with each second the metal bites into flesh, every second you just let it sit there. And you wonder how he can stand it, being so damn silent when every inch of his being is screaming in protest. How can he stand it, forcing himself to keep his eyes clamped shut?

_Look at me._

He has to.

He does.

Finally, he's looking, eyes cracking open and locking firmly with yours in bitter acknowledgement. They're cold. They're cold and hard and so damn _green_. There's a question burning there, buried beneath the pain and the hate. A question he's refused to ask aloud. A question you're still looking to answer.

Why?

"You don't remember me." You say it simply, and it rings true. You use the blade to tilt his chin upwards, and he swallows as you consider his face. "You never remember."

He doesn't understand. You don't expect him to.

You're talking of some far away time, some distant place that you can't name but still recall in hazy pieces. A time of innocence. A time filled with scraped knees and plaid scarves, skateboards and popsicles melting onto your fingertips. A time filled with ear-splitting grins and obnoxious laughs, all his and comforting. A time where all you knew was that shock of red hair coupled with the spring green intensity of his gaze, always warm when it met with yours. His arms would be hooked around your shoulders, brotherly in a way, as he tried to smooth talk you into some new scheme. And his words, whispered into the crook of your neck with childlike earnest, something you couldn't fully resent or deny.

A time of innocence gone sour. Broken promises begetting broken people, broken existences. Shimmering hoods and shadowed creatures. Memories lost, identities stolen, for reasons you still can't grasp. You recall dark paths of another's design, paths that held you in a death grip long before you realized there was no turning back, whether you wanted to or not. You remember the gnawing ache in your chest—and that never leaves, no, never subsides—always pointing back to him.

He's the constant.

You recall other times, other lives, where you found him. You'll always find him, somehow different, somehow exactly the same. You'll cross paths with a one-side jolt of recognition (always you, only you) that you try to ignore. Fail to ignore. You'll call a name. His name. A name you shouldn't know. He'll hear that call, sometimes. Most times, he doesn't.

It leaves you cold.

"Please…"

You stare down at him, lip curling in disgust at the small plea in his voice. He's tired.

So are you.

"What's my name," you ask.

The question is so abrupt that it throws him off, even though you've asked him countless times by now. Each night, with each new session. Between each scream he chokes back, during every small act of kindness you show in order to soften the blows. The same question, in varying tones. Each time he's silent.

Of course he can't answer.

You sigh.

Fine.

* * *

><p><em>Seeing him sparked collisions in your mind.<em>

_They were sudden and violent, hitting you with such force that you were left winded in his wake before you could even begin to understand why. Seeing him made anxiety swell in your throat and squeeze at your lungs, your bones, and you felt yourself crumbling from the very core. He was walking past you, arm wound tight over someone's shoulder (him again, that boy again) and a grin that put the Cheshire Cat's to shame plastered on his face._

_You'd seen this before. Many times before, usually with a different backdrop. Bustling city sidewalks. Evening crowds filling a quiet store. Gritty corridors in not-so quiet clubs. Narrow alleys that bled into bleakly lit streets. No matter the location, the colors were faded, washed away as your surroundings blurred at the edges. And he was never alone. Not like you. Not with his hands balled like stones stuffed in one's pocket. Not with headphones muting everything but the dull ringing in your ears. He was always with that blond. That boy with a face far younger than his years, a face that sent a different kind of spark through your body._

_Anger. Regret._

_Envy._

_And they passed you by, chatting in that easy way that once came naturally to you. You were calling out before you could catch yourself, calling the red head's name. He looked back, pausing mid-sentence with uncertainty on his face. You called him again, his name tumbling from your mouth and stinging your lips. You called him, wondering why this man's face struck a nerve in you, why his voice was shaking some color back into your world._

You know me.

_And you hated how the thought sounded more like begging than a statement, but you thought it all the same. He was staring at you, studying you, and—_

Axel, you know me.

_And all of his usual warmth. All of that spark. All of the familiarity you hoped to see in his eyes._

_Gone._

* * *

><p>"I think I hated you once."<p>

You say it as you sew thread into his skin. You're kneeling before him, almost reverent with the needle tucked between your fingers, pressing its tip with practiced ease through the ridges you pinch into his chest. Numerous holes, swollen and pink. They pepper his torso in crude constellations. Pinch, puncture, pull. Pinch. Puncture. Pull. A steady rhythm with cords of red etched deep, forming a haphazard shape that looks something like a melting heart.

You're almost finished when a choked noise finally leaves his mouth.

You hardly look up, knowing full well that he'll keep his eyes clenched shut, keep biting his lip so hard that it splits and bleeds. Anything to deny you the satisfaction of his cries.

You simply pinch at his chest harder, giving the needle another spiteful tug. "You were stubborn. Even when you did as you were told, it had to be your way. If you even bothered listening at all."

He's struggling to keep silent now, shrinking with each stab into his skin, each burning pull of thread. Crying, you think. Praying, if you didn't know any better. He writhes in the chair, making the wood scrape against blood and piss-stained floorboards, and you have to pause long enough for him to settle down. The thread is stretched taut from his heaving chest.

"I think I broke you. Or tried."

Tears. You aren't imagining them. They glisten at the corners of his eyes, spill down his cheeks. Your mouth twitches in the faintest hint of amusement. You wrap your first around the needle, ignoring how it sticks you, and you yank it. Once. Twice. Again, much harder, watching the thread squeeze until his skin gives under the force and tears. The red is much deeper, more vibrant, and he's letting out a retching sound as you rip him apart at the seams.

"I think you let me."

And your voice, however cutting in tone, is still low. You're entranced by the crimson spatter on his skin, by the way droplets flick onto your tank top, onto your face. The pungent smell ghosts your nostrils and hangs in the air. His joints snap and crack with each movement, and he's trembling, trembling the pathetic way beasts do when they lie dying. You keep pulling on the thread in a one-two-three motion. Then stop.

He's holding back gasping sobs.

"I hated that even more," you whisper.

And in spite of the tears, the wavering of his breath, he grits his teeth and keeps his eyes closed. "Fu…uck you…"

Stubborn.

* * *

><p><em>You had a plan, the both of you. Slow-going. Intricate. Flexible, where necessary. Mostly, you played it by ear and bided your time in the legion of hoods. Mostly, that's all either of you could really do. The Organization always held a tight leash on its members.<em>

_Yet still, there was the plan. Climb the ranks. Figure out the kinks in the Organization's framework, which weaknesses you could exploit, if any. Which members you could use or eliminate. Everyone else was fair game so long as you two came out with some semblance of sanity, some form of freedom. So long as that fire for life once buried in your soul didn't die completely, as so many things did when it came to the Organization. So long as you could take back what was stolen from you and become your own selves again. Your old selves._

_Somewhere along the way, that got muddled._

_Perhaps you'd forgotten your roots. Perhaps he'd forgotten what lay ahead. Perhaps there was just too much distance. Like it mattered, in the end. Like any of it really mattered._

_Because you strayed._

_Because he stopped caring._

_Then that boy came into the picture._

_Keyblade Wielder. Nuisance._

_Your bane._

_His friend._

_He'd fought for that friend. Defied orders for that friend. Acted as if the very thought of losing the boy _pained_ him. As if he had any pain left to feel. As if any of you could truly feel. (Couldn't you?) He'd played along with the plan for so long, so assuredly, and suddenly he had doubts? Suddenly he thought he could care?_

_You wondered when you stopped._

_You wondered why he hadn't fought as hard for you._

_And he was an idiot for it. He was an idiot for choosing some scrawny upstart in spite of years of playing double agent, years of toeing the line, years of trying to repair a friendship long withered but still _there. _If only he looked hard enough._

_Instead, he'd run away._

"_No one's ever as they seem," you recalled Xemnas telling you not long before you'd been welcomed into the Nobodies' ranks. He was the reason for your change. The Alpha. Lord. Master. All you had at this juncture and all you ever would, if he had his way. He always had his way._

_You were kneeling before him, knees pressed against the cold tile as he took your chin in his gloved fingertips. The leather felt like a brand against your skin. In his other hand, he held a knife. A slim, black handle, the blade thin and slightly curved. He held it close to your temple as he spoke low enough to send a chill down your spine._

"_But I can trust you."_

_Your breath hitched and your eyes fluttered shut as the blade inched closer. He traced an X over the bridge of your nose. His mark. His sigil._

_Then he started carving into your skin, deaf to your strangled cry. "Can't I?"_

_You wondered when you started feeling so lost._

_You wondered when things changed._

_You wondered why all you could see was green amidst the red._

* * *

><p>"I think I loved you once."<p>

You say it as you clean his wounds. A damp washcloth in hand, gently wiping at the injuries you inflicted barely an hour ago. He's used to the routine by now. Sharp instruments to start, various knives and needles and hooks slicing and piercing every unmarked surface. An hour's reprieve in nothing but silence and darkness. Then clean-up. Water.

Your confessions.

"I think I still do."

You wipe at the bleeding heart on his chest, at the various X's carved into his arms. He's limp. His head hangs by your shoulder, his breathing faint as you rise up on your haunches to tilt his head back. You dip the washcloth in the small bucket of water at your side, wring it dry. Dab at his sweaty brow.

He sighs.

"But you always had him. Him, you never forget."

His eyes open once more, unfocused. He stares at the workbench behind you, the various tools you have piled on top. Flicks his gaze to the windows, boarded up with splintered wood. Looking anywhere but at you.

There's remembrance in that green.

"I've never understood what you saw in him."

You can sense the name on his lips before he even opens his mouth. You see the memory of it warping his face into something softer, something like remorse. And you grab his chin, pulling it sharply in your direction, forcing his gaze to meet yours. He flinches at the touch, but doesn't look away. Can't. Not with the way you're seething. Not with the way your nails dig into skin.

"I hope, the next time you meet, you're nothing more than a stranger to him," you say through your teeth. "Better yet, I hope you never find him again. I hope you don't go a single day ever seeing his face. Hearing his voice. Knowing his name. I hope he plagues your every thought while he forgets you even exist.

"And I hope it breaks your heart."

You feel his jaw tense. His expression shifts into something hostile—you've hit a nerve, hit something far more painful than any physical injury—and then he's spitting in your face.

You lurch back as saliva drips into your eye. You knock the bucket over in the process, skidding in the murky water that coats the floor. You wipe at your face as rage boils, then you backhand him so hard that he tips over, falls.

And you kick him. You swing a foot into his gut, again and again, letting out haggard screams with each impact. You kick him hard enough that wounds start bleeding again, hard enough that he's coughing up bile. Then you stop, breathing hard as you throw the washcloth onto the floor with a resonant _plop_. You grind your heel into his skull, and all you can think of is that boy.

_Roxas._

"My name," you demand, voice hoarse.

He's coughing, groaning. You wait until it dies down, wait until he's doing nothing more than shivering and sucking in air through his nostrils.

"My _name_, you piece of shit!"

He says nothing.

* * *

><p>"<em>Where do you think they go?"<em>

_You were young. Both of you, just boys and still growing, learning, content and living in a radiant world that made more sense than anything else that would come to follow. A simpler time where the two of you were practically joined at the hip. You'd spend countless days racing through the streets and causing mischief, followed by countless nights watching the stars from your backyard. You were lying in the grass that night, dew tickling your freckled skin. The porch light shone as brightly as the moon above, and you hoped he didn't hear how hard your heart was beating when he rolled into your side and draped an arm over your stomach._

_You looked at him, arching a brow. "What?"_

_"Shooting stars. When they fall."_

_"They don't _go_ anywhere. They just burn up, you know? In the atmosphere. Fizzle. Gone."_

_He pouted. Pouted, and still he tangled his fingers with yours as he considered your words. "Some of them end up down here, though."_

_"Yeah." Your voice was airy, your body warm. _He _was warm. You gripped his hand, running a thumb over his flushed skin. "Yeah, but then they're just dead rock. And that's not even the whole star, just a chunk of it."_

_"You know, you suck at this whole cosmic awe and wonder thing."_

_"Is that what you're going for?"_

_And his laugh rang clear as a bell in the night air, sweeter than the mint on his breath, brighter than any star or moon. He curled into you. You couldn't remember when this closeness became habit, when it became something you invited and embraced with tender touches of your own. You'd be damned before you gave it up, damned if it was ever taken from you._

_"Which would you choose?" He whispered it, his face tucked into the curve of your neck. His mouth, on your neck. "If you were a shooting star, I mean. Crash or burn?"_

_You closed your eyes. "Mm..."_

_"Me, I think I'd rather crash."_

_"Sucks...either way."_

_"Yeah." And he was pressing kisses there, first chaste then more heated, hungry. Heat against your skin, shooting straight through your nerves and drawing a soft moan from your lips. Kisses in between his words. "But at least you'd go out with a bang, still have something left."_

You'd still be broken_, you almost told him, but his tongue at your pulse left you numb and wordless._

_You, you'd rather burn._

* * *

><p>"Does it hurt?"<p>

You're perched on the workbench, watching him. He's motionless on the floor, lying in his own filth of blood and piss and shit. The skin where the ropes bind him are now scraped raw, as if he'd tried to wriggle himself loose while you were gone. He's given up now. He's quiet now. staring at the soles of your boots with the broken look of one who knows the inevitable is near.

You're still not satisfied.

You pluck a blowtorch from the bench, hold it carefully in your hands. If he notices, he doesn't respond. Doesn't so much as flinch when you approach in slow strides and crouch beside his face.

"Do you want me to stop?"

He inhales. Once. His bloodshot eyes flit up to yours, and you can see all the desperation there. All the silent pleading.

"Do you remember my name?"

He exhales. Once. Shuddering. His eyes water as he searches your stony expression for clues. Answers. He doesn't know. He just doesn't know, but he wants to. He wants to know why it's so important. Why it's causing so much pain. Why he can't remember, whether or not he should. Fresh tears fall as he murmurs, "I don't."

You blink.

Then you turn on the blowtorch, bring the flame to a needlepoint.

"Crash or burn?"

And he burns. You let the flame lap at his face, dance along his eye, and the surrounding skin browns. Blackens. Cracks and peels. You hear the pop as the eye starts to ooze, puss bursting from the socket. You dig the mouth of the torch in, twisting it, watching as the flames are smothered and swallowed whole in that gaping cavity. All of this as he shrieks, all of this as he rocks against the chair to no avail. He burns.

Then you stop. You stop, and he's heaving, straining, mind reeling. You see the burns marring the right side of his face beyond recognition, beyond repair.

And you think of stars.

* * *

><p><em>Commit me to memory.<em>

* * *

><p>It's been two days now.<p>

He's stopped breathing.

Oddly enough, you find you still can.

It takes you a moment to move from the shed door, to tear your gaze away from the charred holes where his eyes once were. To take in the disfigured mess before you. You're slow in setting the chair upright, slow in untying his bonds with steady fingers that don't quite feel like your own. The smell of rot is thick in the air, suffocating you, but you move through your haze. His body's slumped, cold, skin sunken and peeling. You could break him now, if you aren't careful. Shatter him with the slightest touch. So you're gentle.

There's not much left, not much you can do other than dispose of him. You clean him as best you can. Wipe him down with a fresh washcloth, fresh water. You mind all the burns and bruises, all the scars tracing the contours of body. You clean the floor, scrub away the grime as your head buzzes. Then you're laying him down, like a parent putting a child to rest, crossing his arms over his heart.

And you sit beside him, cross-legged. Staring.

A strange calm washes over you for the first time in a week. One very long week. And you think, as you run knuckles down his cheek, at least this way he's gone out with a bang. This way, he's got something to remember. Because there will be next times. There will always be next times. And you think, with all this time, there's a first for everything.

It's the first time you've killed him. It'll be the last.

So you tell yourself.


End file.
